


Disconnect

by ncfan



Series: Femslash February [28]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Drug Use, F/F, Female Character of Color, Femslash February, POV Female Character, This is G-rated by TMA standards, Trauma, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 06:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17761943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: They were both tired; they just sought different ways of dealing with it.





	Disconnect

They hadn’t slept much since the last attack. Basira would allow that. No one was getting much in the way of sleep, because even if the attacks had slacked off considerably, and it had been pretty quiet within the Institute itself, no one could shake the feeling that another one was around the corner. It just didn’t do to let your guard down, after what happened last time.

And even if this place was safer than her own flat, Basira wouldn’t lie and say she _liked_ going to sleep here. For one thing, she was sleeping on a camp bed instead of her own _real_ bed, and for another, the Magnus Institute was not empty of demons and monsters. They were invisible and intangible, but Basira could feel them weaving themselves into the fibers of her mind when she dreamed. Like a choking vine, they came and they would not go; they just sank their roots in deeper whenever Basira tried to focus on them.

It was difficult to care. Basira had bigger things to worry about than the voyeur that had written itself into the foundations of the building she slept in.

She’d moved her camp bed out of the room she and Melanie used to sleep in together. She knew Melanie didn’t like it, just like she knew that if Melanie woke from a nightmare with Basira trying to shake her awake, there was a good chance Basira would walk out of that room with a knife sticking out of her abdomen. Basira still kept her camp bed in that room during the day, though, only retrieving it right before she was ready to (try to) go to sleep.

She still had to go into that room to get her bed, so she still ran across Melanie late at night, every night. And normally, Melanie, not yet entirely asleep, woke up, and, depending on what the day had been like, waved, or muttered good night, or swore groggily and rolled over on her creaky camp bed. The swearing was fast becoming the only response she had left in her, though Basira would take it over the alternative of scrambling out of bed with a knife in hand, before she woke up enough to realize that it was someone safe and put her knife away. (She’d take the swearing over the way it made her feel, to see the knife come out again.)

Basira really did try to be as quiet as she could. She knew Melanie’s sleep aids weren’t helping her much, knew just as surely that getting as little sleep as she was was helping her even less. She’d watched deterioration before. She wasn’t prepared to be back in the position of clean-up and damage control, to be back to constantly watching for the next outburst, deciding whether to warn the recipient to keep their distance or try to persuade the prospective perpetrator to stay their hand. She was tired. They were both tired. Tired people made mistakes. She was tired.

And despite being as quiet as she could, Basira fully expected that the process of moving her camp bed out of the room would make enough noise to wake Melanie up. So when it didn’t, she took notice.

She was halfway to the door when she realized that Melanie hadn’t stirred. When she realized that she hadn’t heard any slurred profanity slung at her, Basira froze, eyes snapping to where Melanie was lying on her own camp bed, back turned to her. She was still, so still, her head of fine black hair not shifting even slightly. She didn’t twitch in her sleep. She didn’t sigh.

“Melanie?”

There was no reaction to the sound of her name being said.

Slowly, carefully, Basira lowered her bed to the floor, and made her way over to Melanie’s bed.

Maybe she was just sleeping more soundly tonight than she did usually. It _had_ been a while since the last attack; maybe Melanie had finally started to relax a little again. (That wasn’t it; Basira didn’t know how, but she knew that that wasn’t it.) Maybe she was drunk, and sleeping more deeply than usual as a result. (Basira knew Melanie hadn’t been to any off-license lately.)

It wasn’t her business. Basira had bigger things to worry about. She was tired. She jostled Melanie’s shoulder gently, and watched, brow furrowing, as Melanie reacted not at all. She was so tired.

“Melanie?” Basira jostled Melanie’s shoulder again, less gently. “Melanie, wake up.” Her voice was so flat now, all the time. There were times when it took Basira a moment to recognize that voice as her own. “Melanie? Melanie.” Both hands now, turning Melanie onto her back and shaking her violently. (She’d been on a case once, when she was much younger, before she was sectioned, where a woman had killed her baby by shaking it off and on for days until its brain finally stopped working. It made no sense that it came to mind, but it did now.)

There came “Melanie” out of her mouth, over and over again, as Basira kept on shaking her. A thousand things flashed through her mind. A man who’d shot himself in the face several times and still reached for the gun again, still cried out for release. A statue eroding in the rain and the wind. Flowers wilting in the pitiless sun. A man with too many bones and flesh like wet clay. People who went to death and rose again, less themselves than they had been before they closed their eyes.

She wasn’t panicking. Old habits die hard, and Basira could pack panic neatly away without ever feeling it touch her. But there was a strange pressure building behind her eyes, like a headache without the throbbing pain, and finally she gave it a voice and slapped Melanie hard across the face, her voice rising as she demanded, “Melanie, wake up!”

Basira let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding in as slowly, too slowly, Melanie’s dark eyes fluttered open. No violent reaction from her this time, though it would frankly have been half-justified, given the circumstances under which she woke. At the best of times, Basira had to squint to differentiate Melanie’s irises from her pupils, but she didn’t have to look closely this time to see that Melanie’s eyes were unfocused and clouded.

“Trying to sleep,” Melanie slurred, voice barely more than a whispered mumble.

“I can see that.” Still flat was her voice, insufficient to express any level of concern, let alone the level she felt. The air around them felt too cold and too close. “You didn’t wake when I called to you.”

Basira narrowed her eyes as she peered at Melanie’s face. It was slack, looking asleep even as Melanie gazed blearily up at her. Beneath her cool fawn skin, Basira could pick up on a certain pallor that she hadn’t noticed before, even when Melanie was cutting through twisted bodies like they were made of water.

The words were out of her mouth almost before the realization hit her: “You’ve switched drugs.”

The “Mmm” that rumbled faintly in Melanie’s throat would have to play the part of a ‘yes.’

“What are you taking now? How much are you taking?” _Keep the questions simple_ , Basira thought to herself; Melanie was more likely to be able to answer simple questions. She’d save scolding for the morning, when everyone was properly awake.

“Mmhmm.” Melanie blinked rapidly, her mouth pulling in a frown. Basira could feel her shoulders tremble slightly under her hands. “Don’t… I don’t…” Her face screwed up, slowly, though the hitch in her voice as she managed “I couldn’t _sleep_ ” probably made it seem sudden to her.

“Okay. You can tell me tomorrow morning.” Breakfast was going to be interesting. Basira wondered if Melanie got nauseated off of medication easily.

Melanie nodded—at least, Basira thought it was a nod. It was a little hard to tell, given how little energy Melanie seemed to have to do anything at all. But then she tilted her head a little, her fine hair falling across her cheek, and she mumbled, “Never noticed… Your eyes…”

“What about them?” Basira asked, more softly than she’d intended.

“Thought they were brown, but they’re not. They’re sort of…” Melanie lifted up a noticeably trembling hand, let it rest clumsily on Basira’s cheek. “They’re sort of greenish.”

“It’s called central heterochromia,” Basira explained, still speaking softly. “I do have green eyes, but I have a ring of brown around the pupils.”

“’s pretty,” Melanie slurred, her eyes falling shut abruptly, as if jerked down with hooks and wire. She tried opening them again, but couldn’t seem to keep them open for more than a second before she had to shut them again.

Basira bit back a sigh. She took Melanie’s hand, somehow still on her face, and set it down on her stomach. She held the hand, smaller than her own and cooler than it ought to have been, for a few moments before letting go. “Okay. You need to sleep.”

No reply. Melanie seemed to have taken the directive in immediate earnest.

Basira slept in the room that night. (She was so tired of finding herself like this, and so tired of still caring enough to do something about it.)


End file.
